A strange turn of events.
Having made a comment on a youtube video last week about Gaffarel, Richelieu’s librarian (Book Hunter) – thank you Aewar and WN – I’d sent myself on a quest to verify my own comment.
Here’s where that path led.
Several years ago I posted about the Antikythera – to total silence – now I’m back in the world of Ancient Robots.
Gaffarel was a 17th century bod and a recent academic article about him said the following…
Greek texts and Greek Mythology are rife with mentions of these ancient machines.
Pindar wrote :
The animated figures stand
Adorning every public street
And seem to breathe in stone, or
move their marble feet.
The likes of Inigo Jones stunned the Stuart Court with mechanical scenery on stage.
For centuries, fashions travelled far and wide by the use of articulated wooden dolls wearing tiny replicas of the latest French court dress or Chinese robe or magnificent wig.
Today we think ourselves so clever because we have computers and cars and planes and gadgets.
Mechanical Engineering is Mechanical Engineering no matter what the year/century/eon!